in Suriname, Dutch is the official language taught in schools but Sranan is the language used in day to day life. What's amazing is that it only has 340 words, and yet they can say anything they want in day to day life. Does anyone know where I can find all 340 words? Most dictionaries carry compounds. I just want the basic 340 words.

Totally forgot about this language. Which is unforgivable considering my interest in Haitian Creole, Jamaican Patois, and Papiamentu (going Caribbean for some odd reason, huh?). Thanks for the link Reinder!

Sranan Tongo and the other creoles of Suriname are English-based. (I'm pretty sure that "Sranan" comes from the English pronunciation of 'Suriname' and that "tongo" ([ˈtoŋo], I think) comes from 'tongue'). When the Dutch colonized Suriname, they forbade their slaves from learning Dutch and communicated with them only in Sranan Tongo. This left Suriname in quite an awkward situation when it finally gained independence. A decision had to be made regarding the official language of Suriname. Would it be the language of the colonizers, which the Surinamese were forbidden to learn as slaves? Or would it be the language that most Surinamese already spoke (and that was unique to Suriname), which was also the language that they or their ancestors spoke as slaves?

Because the official language of Suriname is Dutch and not English, Sranan Tongo does not exist in a continuum involving English, though various other English-based creoles do. Thus, as I understand it, it is much less likely to be mistaken for bad English.

For some reason, in my notes (from a class on pidgins, creoles, and language contact in general), I have the word for 'wash' written down as ˈwasi. Also, apparently, the word for 'wasp' in Sranan Tongo is wasiˈwasi, so reduplication is used in order to avoid confusion between 'wash' and 'wasp'. There is a similar phenomenon I noted just now on the Krio thread.

Bakra is also a vocabulary item found in many English-based creoles (including Krio) for 'white person' (or 'European' or whatever).

Help me to learn Sranan Tongo? Ok, let’s start here with some basics. I know fa waka and fa yu tan. How about how to say I am African. My name is djalo and I am going or I went to the store to buy bananas, rice and meat.